Generally, blood is used as an important index for determining various diseases or health conditions. Platelets abundantly containing growth factors in the blood are used for therapeutic purposes. Blood is composed of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, and the platelets mainly exist in a plasma. The plasma is divided into a platelet rich plasma (PRP) and a platelet poor plasma (PPP). The PRP is transplanted into a pain area, in particular, knees, ligaments, muscles, or the like, and stimulates stem cells to help in creating cells. As such, the PRP has been used for therapeutic purposes.
Since the PRP is a small amount of about 1% in a collected blood and its viscosity is high, it is difficult to separate the PRP from red blood cells. Therefore, research has been actively conducted on technologies for extracting a PRP other than red blood cells. Generally, after blood collected from a human body is injected into a PRP separation container, the PRP is extracted using a centrifuge. In the past, a test tube has been commonly used as the PRP separation container. However, since the PRP extraction is inconvenient, a separation container with a fluid chamber divided into two chambers has recently been developed and used.
An example of the PRP separation container has been proposed in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1128163 (registration date: Mar. 12, 2012) by the inventor of the present application and is illustrated in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view for describing a PRP separation container according to the related art.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, the PRP separation container 10 according to the related art includes: a main body 11 defining an internal space divided into an upper fluid chamber 12 and a lower fluid chamber 13; an upper cover 15 disposed to seal an upper portion of the upper fluid chamber 12; a lower cover 16 disposed to seal a lower portion of the lower fluid chamber 13 and coupled to be ascendable in such a state that an outer peripheral surface of the lower cover 16 comes into close contact with an inner peripheral surface of the lower fluid chamber 13 by an external force applied upward; and a fluid collection part 14 dividing the internal space into the upper fluid chamber 12 and the lower fluid chamber 13 and including a fluid passage protruding upward from a central portion to communicate the upper fluid chamber 12 with the lower fluid chamber 13.
A PRP extracting method using the PRP separation container 10 will be described below.
First, blood collected from a human body is injected into the lower fluid chamber 13 by using a syringe, and a centrifugation is performed on the PRP separation container 10, into which the blood is injected, by using a centrifuge.
When the centrifugation is completed, the blood is separated into a red blood cell, a PRP, and a PPP in this order from the lower portion of the lower fluid chamber 13 due to a specific gravity difference. Next, the PPP partially accommodated in the lower fluid chamber 13 is introduced into the upper fluid chamber 12 through a fluid passage 14a by ascending the lower cover 16.
After that, plasma accommodated in the lower fluid chamber 13 is introduced into the upper fluid chamber 12 through the fluid passage 14a by continuously ascending the lower cover 16. In a state in which the PRP exists in the fluid passage 14a, a syringe is inserted into the fluid passage 14a through an injection port of the upper cover 15, and the PRP existing in the fluid passage 14a is extracted. In this way, the PRP can be easily separated and extracted.
However, in order to ascend the lower cover disposed inside the PRP separation container, the PRP separation container according to the related art, which is proposed in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1128163, has necessarily need the main body having a relatively complex structure. Accordingly, since it is necessary to separately manufacture the main body, a manufacturing cost of the main body increases and thus a manufacturing cost of the PRP separation container increases. This undermines price competitiveness and the PRP separation container is difficult to carry.
On the other hand, recently, fibrin has been extracted by separating PRP and PPP using the above-described PRP separation container and then solidifying the separated PRP and PPP. The fibrin has been used as a base of an implant for a dental treatment, and the demand for the fibrin has been steadily increased. If the demand for the fibrin extends to an orthopedic area, the demand for the fibrin is expected to explosively increase.
When the PRP and the PPP are exposed to air, the PRP and the PPP begin to naturally coagulate. However, since a long time is taken until the PRP and the PPP coagulate, a reduction in a coagulation time is most important in terms of productivity. Therefore, in a state in which the PRP and PPP remains in the upper fluid chamber of the PRP separation container, in which the PRP and the PPP are separated from each other, the PRP and the PPP are coagulated by using the centrifuge again. In this manner, the coagulation time of the PRP and the PPP has been reduced to some extent.
Although the method of coagulating the PRP and the PPP using the centrifuge as in the related art can reduce the coagulation time of the PRP and PPP to some extent, about 20 minutes to about 30 minutes are taken until the PRP and the PPP coagulate, resulting in a reduction in productivity. Therefore, there is a need for research and development of technologies capable of reducing the coagulation time.